


Someday Never Comes

by Anonymous



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-11-03
Updated: 2006-11-03
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:57:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,371
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John had a plan.  He always had a plan, for everything. </p><p>Written for the Jeffathon prompt: someday never comes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someday Never Comes

John had a plan.

He always had a plan, for everything. Mary teased him about it sometimes. She wasn't even three months pregnant and not only was the nursery ready, but he had Dean's – or Danielle's – college picked out and was working on how to pay for it. (Figure out the goal first, aim for it, and then make the details fall into place, that was his way of thinking. Dean would go to Yale, period. The money, he’d find a way to make that happen.)

And then medical school, he was hoping. A good, solid career fighting diseases, saving people’s lives, that was what he’d push for. But whatever Dean decided to do with his life, he wouldn’t have to worry about paying for it; Dean could have any life he wanted, and John was going to take care of everything.

And then someday, after Dean had cured cancer, he’d take care of his good old mom and dad, get them a nice little island in the Caribbean, or maybe one of the Keys. He and Mary would retire down south, live out the rest of their days sipping pina coladas on the beach. Granted, he didn’t really like fruity mixed drinks, but they seemed the sort of thing you drank on beaches. Possibly out of coconuts, with little umbrellas in them.

“So, the cure for cancer, was that before or after Danielle becomes the first female president?” Mary asked.

“After. Of course, the bodyguards will be a hassle, but we’ll just have to learn to live with them.”

“Oh, of course,” Mary agreed.

He’d been managing a pretty impressive straight face until she kissed it away.

 

Someday, Sammy was going to be a great baseball player. John could tell. All right, he was too small to grip a bat, but the way he swung that little fist, that was star potential right there.

Maybe a boxer?

...Nah, baseball. Scholarships. Major league. Hall of Fame. They’d practice in the evenings – Dean too. All the Winchester boys out in the backyard, playing catch.

And someday, when Sammy was in the Hall of Fame and Dean was a rock star (a drummer, of course; John had bought him a plastic drum set for Christmas last year. Dean had been just as happy beating on the pots and pans up till then, but they were starting to get pretty dented), then John and Mary would actually be able to make their dinner reservations on their anniversary.

"I’m real sorry about cancelling last minute like this, Mrs. W."

"Don’t worry about it, Christie. Things happen."

Things like hiring the same flaky teenage babysitter over and over again happen, yeah. Christie was better than their last attempt, a girl who’d spent the night making out on their couch with her boyfriend and hadn’t noticed Dean sneaking out of the house – or rather, Christie was a better babysitter on those rare occasions that she actually kept an appointment. They had got to find someone else to watch the kids, and soon.

“Someday, Dean,” John murmured as Dean joined him at the side of Sammy’s crib, “you’re going to be old enough to watch your brother. And you’re not going to flake out on me, are you?”

“Noooo.” Dean shook his head, hair flying. He needed a trim.

“Didn’t think so. Good man.”

“I can watch him now,” Dean added, peering into the crib intently, and John did his best not to laugh.

“Sure you could. But let’s give it a few more years, maybe.”

 

John and Mary had looked into a lot of different neighborhoods in a lot of different towns before they bought the house in Lawrence. They researched the best schools, the safest streets. They hadn’t looked into daycare. They hadn’t thought they would need it. Mary was going to stay home with the boys until they went off to school.

Mary was going to do a lot of things.

“It’s just for a few hours,” John promised Dean, who wasn’t crying. Dean hadn’t cried in days. He just held onto Sammy and kept his gaze fixed on his father’s face.

That made it worse.

He eyeballed the woman running the daycare through the windows. She looked nice enough. A little young, and a little flaky, with lots of necklaces and big dangly earrings of the sort Mary had stopped wearing after Dean had been born. Too much of a target. Didn’t seem to make much sense for a daycare teacher, but then maybe she’d gotten used to dodging children’s grabbing hands. Or maybe she was new, and an idiot. Maybe he’d be better off taking Sam and Dean somewhere else.

If there had been anywhere else to take them, that is.

Someday, he promised himself, he would figure this out. He would work out how to spend time with his boys _and_ take care of them, on his own.

He didn’t have much of a choice.

 

Someday, Dean was going to be able to have friends over after school. For that matter, someday Dean would make friends. John would find them a place to stay for more than a month at a time, and it’d be easier for the boys then. They could stay in one school for the whole year, get to know their classmates. It was no wonder Dean didn’t talk to people outside the family, the way they always left everyone behind.

But it was all right. John was getting close, he was sure of it. That Bobby had been a real asshole, with all those questions he asked about John’s sons sitting in the back of the car, as if they were any of his business; but the man had known what he was talking about, for that. He’d been a help. Once John managed to pin down exactly what this thing was, then he’d be able to track it, and he’d be able to kill it. And then it would be over.

Someday soon, he’d be able to stop moving. The boys would be able to get back to normal. He promised himself that as he stepped into the motel shower, still fully clothed, and let the lukewarm water sluice the black blood off his face.

 

Someday he wouldn’t wake Dean up as he stumbled in after midnight, and Dean wouldn’t get up without a word and make sure John made it into bed rather than collapsing on the floor. And someday he’d be able to come to school on parents' night, and on career day he’d be able to tell all the students what he did for a living. And someday he’d know who Sammy’s favorite cartoon hero was, instead of finding out when Dean pressed an action figure into his hand and informed him that this would be Sammy’s favorite Christmas present this year. And someday he’d see people as something other than easy targets, making his boys more vulnerable with the need to be careful, oh so careful around the civilians. Someday Dean would be proud of something other than his skill with a gun. Someday he’d remember to keep track of what date it was, and whose birthday was when. Someday he’d put money back into those college savings accounts, instead of just taking it out and out and out every time he needed more ammo and more information. Someday soon, John would be sleeping beside his wife again, except that on second thought cremation was so much safer.

Someday Sammy would stop wanting a normal life, just like the rest of them. His youngest son would realize there was no such thing as a normal life, just one lived in ignorance of the dangers all around you, and that ignorance was the fastest way to get yourself killed.

Someday Sammy would stop reminding him of all the somedays that never came.

 

John had a plan as he scrawled the sigil on the hospital floor. He always had a plan, for everything. He would figure out the details later, but the goal was the important part.

The goal was the easy part, really. Someday he would be gone, and his sons would be alive, and strong.

That was the only someday that ever mattered.


End file.
